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Abstract
Delivering critical transportation infrastructure solutions is a challenge for all governments. In developing countries, this challenge is greater because populations are increasing, resources are limited, and aspirations for a better quality of life are growing. Governments in developing countries have difficulty funding these ventures and ensuring their success. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) offer a potential solution. While PPPs are controversial, they enable private sector funding for critical infrastructure and private sector expertise in project management. This study investigates the factors that attract private investments to transportation infrastructure PPPs. These factors include macroeconomic, governance, and internal or project-specific clusters of variables. This study adds to existing literature by developing a comprehensive theoretical model that predicts the level of private investment in transportation infrastructure PPPs, and by focusing intently on the internal, project-specific factors that attract private investments. These factors can be directly controlled or influenced by the public organizations and managers that organize PPPs; hence, insights generated from this study provide actionable advice to help attract more private investments, which are crucial for ensuring the success of PPP projects. This study evaluates 1,504 PPP projects in 70 developing countries across three decades. Most hypotheses are supported by empirical evidence. Among external macroeconomic and governance variables, Access to Finance, Foreign Aid, Economic Growth Rate, Voice and Accountability, Rule of Law, and Human Development impact the Level of Private Investment positively, while Control of Corruption impacts the Level of Private Investment negatively. Among the internal variables, Project Duration, Project Subsector, and Brownfield-type Projects rather than Greenfields exert a significant negative influence on the Level of Private Investment, while Project Size is largely neutral. These findings are confirmed with multiple analyses involving a range of analytical methods and tools. Therefore, researchers and practitioners can apply these findings to other countries, contexts, and time periods with reasonable confidence.